This bloated mess of a "sequel" to Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is a turgid psychedelic mess. Keeping only the title to Lewis Carrolls's second eponymous novel about Alice attempting to keep her sanity in a world inhabited by clearly insane individuals, "Looking Glass" has little to offer other than a paper-thin plot penned by hack writer Linda Woolverton. Woolverton invented the "Underland" idea that ruined the first Burton film, but that piece of dreck made at least a billion dollars, so hey! let's get Linda back for more stupidity.
Two hours drag by while the audience is beaten over the head with layer after layer of CGI visuals. Once this tedium is over, you can't really point at much of anything that rose above any other set pieces. The theft of ideas on display here is the most memorable thing to viewers who can catch some of the many grabs from other, better sources. Time's castle is simply one of many video games, take your pick. The "seconds" who work for Time are metal Minions. The visual in which the "hours' stop the Great Clock is a mashup of Transformers + Fritz Lang's epic "Metropolis". The Chronosphere is another version of "The Time Machine", looking like the mechanism from the 2002 version of Well's tale. Floating clocks and gears are borrowed from Scorsese's "Hugo". There's more than a little "Back to the Future" going on here as well.The most interesting visuals come from the Queen of Heart's vegetable servants, which were ripped out of the pages of art history for a couple of cheap jokes, these creatures were invented by the painter Arcimboldo, who died in 1593!! He got no screen credit as far as I could tell. Other bits and pieces in this gaudy bore were snatched as well, no sense in pointing them out. It's no wonder some viewers kept thinking "I've seen this before". That's because you have.
Depp needs to put down the makeup and stop lisping. Helena Bonham Carter just bellows. Sasha Baron Cohen was nearly impossible to understand. The reworking of the Wonderland characters into some weird Tolkien-like Middle Earth inhabitants isn't worth talking about. In terms of crime, this movie is grand larceny. Thank goodness Lewis Carroll only wrote the two Alice books, but I'm sure Linda Hackwriter would be willing to pen yet another bad trip for a big check. Avoid this mess.
Two hours drag by while the audience is beaten over the head with layer after layer of CGI visuals. Once this tedium is over, you can't really point at much of anything that rose above any other set pieces. The theft of ideas on display here is the most memorable thing to viewers who can catch some of the many grabs from other, better sources. Time's castle is simply one of many video games, take your pick. The "seconds" who work for Time are metal Minions. The visual in which the "hours' stop the Great Clock is a mashup of Transformers + Fritz Lang's epic "Metropolis". The Chronosphere is another version of "The Time Machine", looking like the mechanism from the 2002 version of Well's tale. Floating clocks and gears are borrowed from Scorsese's "Hugo". There's more than a little "Back to the Future" going on here as well.The most interesting visuals come from the Queen of Heart's vegetable servants, which were ripped out of the pages of art history for a couple of cheap jokes, these creatures were invented by the painter Arcimboldo, who died in 1593!! He got no screen credit as far as I could tell. Other bits and pieces in this gaudy bore were snatched as well, no sense in pointing them out. It's no wonder some viewers kept thinking "I've seen this before". That's because you have.
Depp needs to put down the makeup and stop lisping. Helena Bonham Carter just bellows. Sasha Baron Cohen was nearly impossible to understand. The reworking of the Wonderland characters into some weird Tolkien-like Middle Earth inhabitants isn't worth talking about. In terms of crime, this movie is grand larceny. Thank goodness Lewis Carroll only wrote the two Alice books, but I'm sure Linda Hackwriter would be willing to pen yet another bad trip for a big check. Avoid this mess.